Beta Weekends for Balance Patches

This is a hard time for the balance in game across all game modes and we know it. It's hard to make everything work with one patch, and it's even harder to make everyone happy about the changes.

My suggestion is simple: Beta Weekends for Balance Patches.

Although they can create quite a rumor they seemed to be the best way to get some proper feedback, see what works and what doesn't. We all know that there's a lot for the Devs to do about this and I think that balancing at this point is still possible.Why not work together? People on forums are vicious for a reason - It's understandable for both raging people and quiet ANet. People are raging because ANet is secretive and quiet, and ANet is secretive and quiet because people are raging. No questioning about it.

So, what do you think? Would it be cool if we waited 1 more week for Balance Patches but had the Beta Weekend for them a week before? A simple question, I expect simple answers.

Please don't just quote each other about the specific profession performance and OP, underpowered skills but rather discuss the topic. I think we can have some constructive dialogue here.

I think balancing ain't that easy. Every single player will have different ideas about how to balance classes. It all depends on casual vs hardcore and any in between, meta or non meta (or hybrid), the mode played, the style/role said person plays, the weapon(s) used, the gears used, the builds and traits used, the skills used... And players also see no numbers and figures that the balance team sees. So in my personal opinion it should stay with the employees in charge. I think the balancing should be fully split into pvp, wvw and pve (and last is so broad that raids require other balancing as i.e. open world play as well).

@Aaralyna.3104 said:

That is true for sure. It must be hard to give everyone what they want without entirely breaking the game and splitting everything across sPvP, WvW, PvE and even open world PvE would be the best they can do.What I think is that a lot of changes that are implemented into the game lack testing and this is what makes people angry.GW2 is obviously a very casual-friendly game and I think that the Balance should go for the majority of people as this is the biggest community in game.I:d suggest Beta Weekends as a tool to help everyone make up their mind. And I know 2 days isn't much but this way people would have a sneak peak of what's to come. But ANet can't really trust players to be non-ragy about changes so It's a very subjective view. I think it might help though.

Our community have asked already a lot of times for a Beta Client to test new features but they never listen to this. Of course i dunno how hard would be to create a beta client but for sure it would help a lot. It is not about asking players what they think about balance patches cus everyone wants their fav classes stronger than others, but to find bugs, exploits or mechanics that get unexpectedly OP (like necromancer and rune of sanctuary when new runes system was launched).I've played other games that always release a beta client a week or two before every update and the community is a really strong tool on finding all kinds of bugs and troubles, and they don't even get rewards cause all characters and items on that Beta server are deleted on the end of the Beta time.

@Hynax.9536 said:Our community have asked already a lot of times for a Beta Client to test new features but they never listen to this. Of course i dunno how hard would be to create a beta client but for sure it would help a lot. It is not about asking players what they think about balance patches cus everyone wants their fav classes stronger than others, but to find bugs, exploits or mechanics that get unexpectedly OP (like necromancer and rune of sanctuary when new runes system was launched).I've played other games that always release a beta client a week or two before every update and the community is a really strong tool on finding all kinds of bugs and troubles, and they don't even get rewards cause all characters and items on that Beta server are deleted on the end of the Beta time.

And that would be the exact purpose of Beta Weekends.

No need to create an entirely new beta server. Just launch the changes, give yourself a weeka nd see the statistics, bugs, etc. Then, there's another 1 week to fix things up before releasing it to the game. That is the best I can think of without shacking things and using a lot of resources of ANet's.

I would aprove of that or atleast release balance patch notes 1 week before

uhmm, allot of well known MMO's have a PTS (Player Test Server), that way players can test new patches out before it goes live.it has some advantages

1. players see faults and bugs faster than a small test team.
2. devs can keep it off the live servers for longer when big mistakes are found, also lowers the complaining because players already know why.
3. live patches have a very low chance of game breaking bugs, glitches and mistakes.

i know it does take a little more time to set up such a PTS but it pays itself back in the long run.

@sorudo.9054 said:uhmm, allot of well known MMO's have a PTS (Player Test Server), that way players can test new patches out before it goes live.it has some advantages

1. players see faults and bugs faster than a small test team.
2. devs can keep it off the live servers for longer when big mistakes are found, also lowers the complaining because players already know why.
3. live patches have a very low chance of game breaking bugs, glitches and mistakes.

i know it does take a little more time to set up such a PTS but it pays itself back in the long run.

Something like this could be very helpful for both sides. PTS might be the best option but I dodn't consider it because I don't think ANet has that resource disposal to actually make that without sacrificing other stuff. That's why the Beta Weekends came to my mind as the whole playerbase could check things out and tell what's wrong.There are very little if any disadvantages with this idea and this might actually work.

1. Delay the Balance Patches for 1 week,
2. Launch a Beta Weekend so people can test things out
3. Fix what's there to fix and get some feedback in the week before Balance
4. Launch Balance Patch

This may already be in place, but players on it could be subjected to NDA and thus unable to speak of it.

@kharmin.7683 said:This may already be in place, but players on it could be subjected to NDA and thus unable to speak of it.

Good point. But we don't know anything for sure and that's what bothers me. If there are such players, just tell the players so they don't have to theorize. Just let us know that something like this exists and we're fine then. Don't you think?

@DonArkanio.6419 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:This may already be in place, but players on it could be subjected to NDA and thus unable to speak of it.

That would kinda defeat the purpose of the NDA, no? :) Also, there may be financial or business reasons why such a thing might be kept a secret.

However, my personal belief is that such a player-beta group doesn't exist.

@kharmin.7683 said:

@DonArkanio.6419 said:

@kharmin.7683 said:This may already be in place, but players on it could be subjected to NDA and thus unable to speak of it.

If there have been players testing past balance patches before release that we as consumers don’t kno about due to NDA than they are not very good and need replacing

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:If there have been players testing past balance patches before release that we as consumers don’t kno about due to NDA than they are not very good and need replacing

Well, I just think that ANet could let us know that such thing exists and we're done. No nicknames, etc. Just a pure fact that there is a playerbase testing changes before release.

@kharmin.7683 said:

That would kinda defeat the purpose of the NDA, no? :) Also, there may be financial or business reasons why such a thing might be kept a secret.However, my personal belief is that such a player-beta group doesn't exist.

Yeah, this might be the case. I too don't tink that such player group exists. But I'm curious if there are any other ways of doing it the smart way so everyone can get a bit of transparency before seeing everything live. I udnerstand, however, why would they keep it a secret as to what changes are to come.

ponders

I think this is an interesting approach to it. I don't believe there is a secret player base doing the testing, not in this manner. One reason they had the pre-HoT beta weekends and then the ones for PoF was to see how things worked when masses of players were using them. If you had that many secret testers, there'd have been leaks. The only time in recent memory that I've seen thousands of people keep a secret was the recent January live show of Critical Role: The Search for Grog, which wasn't streamed until last Friday and everything about it remained a surprise for the Twitch viewers. That was unreal ... and I really doubt it could happen in an ongoing game testing scenario.

So beta balance weekends is a very intriguing idea. I can see some downsides -- for the beta weekends our accounts got a "snapshot" and when we chose to play in beta, nothing we did, even on our regular characters, affected our live accounts even though we were playing alongside live players (we could re-log and join live though). No loot was kept, no achievements gained, etc. And some people complained about that (can you imagine? :) ). No live account advancement while playing the new features. If they re-gear to test the new metabuilds, it takes time and then all goes poof when the weekend's done. And beta folks playing alongside live folks will skew the balance results.

But perhaps there are answers to these and any other problems. I do think this is a more dynamic way of handling PTS style testing.

@DonArkanio.6419 said:

@sorudo.9054 said:uhmm, allot of well known MMO's have a PTS (Player Test Server), that way players can test new patches out before it goes live.it has some advantages

1. players see faults and bugs faster than a small test team.
2. devs can keep it off the live servers for longer when big mistakes are found, also lowers the complaining because players already know why.
3. live patches have a very low chance of game breaking bugs, glitches and mistakes.

i know it does take a little more time to set up such a PTS but it pays itself back in the long run.

1. Delay the Balance Patches for 1 week,
2. Launch a Beta Weekend so people can test things out
3. Fix what's there to fix and get some feedback in the week before Balance
4. Launch Balance Patch

but any fix can break another thing, that's why a PTS is superior.also, the DNA mentioned is useless when we know there is a balance patch coming anyway, it's better to be open on such things and have a working patch than fixing the entire game later on when it goes bad.secrecy has never served anyone any good, especially on something this delicate.

@"Donari.5237" said:ponders

So beta balance weekends is a very intriguing idea. I can see some downsides -- for the beta weekends our accounts got a "snapshot" and when we chose to play in beta, nothing we did, even on our regular characters, affected our live accounts even though we were playing alongside live players (we could re-log and join live though). No loot was kept, no achievements gained, etc. And some people complained about that (can you imagine? :) ). No live account advancement while playing the new features. If they re-gear to test the new metabuilds, it takes time and then all goes poof when the weekend's done. And beta folks playing alongside live folks will skew the balance results.

But perhaps there are answers to these and any other problems. I do think this is a more dynamic way of handling PTS style testing.

I think that there is one way of making this happening so it's not like everything is lost once the weekend ends.So here are some ideas that might help Beta Weekends not destroy the cycle of game.

• sPvP: separate queue that is for the testing. You get no rewards for it and the balance changes are present only in this queue. So you can't join normal Unranked or Ranked if you're using the Beta Build.

• WvW: this might be a bit arguable but let's go - Edge of the Mists. This would be a WvW mode with available Beta traits and all the stuff. Again, no rewards.

• PvE: RAIDS - enable a Beta Raidwing, let's say 1st wing (pretty simple one), do most people are able to do this relatively easy and check things out. No rewards for this wing. OPEN WORLD - this one is hard to think of because disconnecting people from world bosses etc. but still letting them play there is unfair. So, maybe if you choose to run Beta Build you don't get rewards? FRACTALS: No rewards for Beta Builds.

Or even something simpler than that - if you use Beta Builds, you don't get rewards and you can't play Ranked PvP.There probably are better ways of making it good but that's all that comes to my mind for now.

@sorudo.9054 said:

@DonArkanio.6419 said:

@sorudo.9054 said:uhmm, allot of well known MMO's have a PTS (Player Test Server), that way players can test new patches out before it goes live.it has some advantages

1. players see faults and bugs faster than a small test team.
2. devs can keep it off the live servers for longer when big mistakes are found, also lowers the complaining because players already know why.
3. live patches have a very low chance of game breaking bugs, glitches and mistakes.

i know it does take a little more time to set up such a PTS but it pays itself back in the long run.

1. Delay the Balance Patches for 1 week,
2. Launch a Beta Weekend so people can test things out
3. Fix what's there to fix and get some feedback in the week before Balance
4. Launch Balance Patch

Well I agree. PTS would be something incredibly useful for balancing. I just thought of cheapest (in my opinion) way. I don't know the costs but it seems to me that i wouldn't take as much resources as the entire new beta server. I might be wrong.True, for sure It's better to know what's wrong and fix it immediately. This would make everyone calm and nice since noone would have to be worrying about sudden unexpected game-braking mechanics.

I think that this would allow both ANet and players to sleep well.

But yeah, PTS would surely improve the overall Balance Patch experience.

@kharmin.7683 said:This may already be in place, but players on it could be subjected to NDA and thus unable to speak of it.

For expansions, possibly. Regular patches? Extremely unlikely.

Aren't they also still fully overhauling classes (like we have seen a big overhaul on mesmer last year where the clone/illusion system got changed)? The problem with player tests is that we cannot see what they are overhauling in the background. So for a player something may seem "fixed" and then 1 patch later a whole profession is overhauled and everything can start over from point 1. And then they may add new specs for expansions (if they come). I do not think they will tell players beforehand which specs there will be and how they look like before the actual content comes out. And then again the whole balancing can go back into the bin coz new build options, new weapon, new stats,... Its an ongoing unbalance to be balanced lol. If it was that easy, a balancing team didn't exist.

@Hynax.9536 said:Our community have asked already a lot of times for a Beta Client to test new features but they never listen to this. Of course i dunno how hard would be to create a beta client but for sure it would help a lot. It is not about asking players what they think about balance patches cus everyone wants their fav classes stronger than others, but to find bugs, exploits or mechanics that get unexpectedly OP (like necromancer and rune of sanctuary when new runes system was launched).I've played other games that always release a beta client a week or two before every update and the community is a really strong tool on finding all kinds of bugs and troubles, and they don't even get rewards cause all characters and items on that Beta server are deleted on the end of the Beta time.

Please we need a PTR.

@sorudo.9054 said:uhmm, allot of well known MMO's have a PTS (Player Test Server), that way players can test new patches out before it goes live.it has some advantages

1. players see faults and bugs faster than a small test team.
2. devs can keep it off the live servers for longer when big mistakes are found, also lowers the complaining because players already know why.
3. live patches have a very low chance of game breaking bugs, glitches and mistakes.

i know it does take a little more time to set up such a PTS but it pays itself back in the long run.

Most test servers are used purely for bugs, meaning it would have little to no change on what this thread is about; testing balance. It's a fairly big waste of resources to just have a server to test balance, especially since it's painfully obvious it would reduce the imbalance, nor the complaining. It would just be different people complaining for different reasons.

Games balanced around volunteer players/the player base is never any more balanced than those done by the developers. From my experience, it tends to be worse when the community opinions are heavily taken into consideration, LoL is an example of how terrible it gets when they are.

I doubt a public beta server is going to help with balance. A lot of 'imbalance' we encounter, especially in pvp/wvw, is not due to balance patches. It is a result of the fundamental design of certain classes or traits being extremely hard to balance, and the general player base cannot offer many constructive ideas regarding these designs. Players playtesting a class on the beta public server will tell you that it is either overpowered or absolutely gutted by new balance changes, but none of these help with balance. Sure, the numbers on certain skills/traits can be changed according to feedback, but the public beta server is not required to achieve these results.

One problem with this suggestion is that beta testers would have an unfair economic advantage any time balance changes impact gear acquisition. Even if they don’t do any insider trading, the moment the patch drops they can take advantage of their knowledge for financial gain. Although the sigil of nullification fiasco was a LS update not balance, it provides a great demonstration on how even an hours head start can result in unbelievable financial gain for a few and have tremendous negative economic impact for others. I recognize that balance is a big issue and mesmers bore a large burden this past year with change after change, but I think this particular solution will bring its own problems just as bad.

Didn't they do something like an open beta for the new elites prior to HoT release? I wonder if any of the feedback from then was constructive enough?